Raise the Hammer

Comment 79842

I'm not sure it's about sprawl. HFD has good equipment and Station locations are good primarily because of the existence of the volunteer Stations in the old municipalities. I think it's been more a conscious decision to not properly fund fire protection. The politicians are in possession of the information required. They have the info I posted here including the 2010 CAO's benchmarking report. There has simply been a steady eroding of staffing levels since the 1980s. I find this disturbing as many of the people on council were around when Plastimet happened. What bothers me more is that they seem to have no trouble essentially handing over $50 million to a money losing private business to build a new stadium in EXACTLY the same place this business whined for years that it couldn't make money, but funding public safety clearly isn't a priority. To put Hamilton Fire where it should be would mean probably 4 or 5 cents a day on a residential property tax bill. At least have the debate in public. Instead we're talking about casino's .